White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World by Geoff Dyer

I like to travel. I like to read books about travel. I want to share another's experiences in foreign places, especially locations that I will likely never get to. It is, as they say, a Wide, Wide World and taking a journey from the comfort of my reading chair without the hassle of luggage, noisy hotel rooms, and trying to decide where to eat lunch is much less stressful. 

My latest armchair adventure has been with author Geoff Dyer. He was just this week a guest at the library for another terrific author event. His book, White Sands: Experiences from the Outside World, was released earlier this month so his appearance in Louisville was one of the first stops on his book tour. Lucky us.

First of all, this book of nine tales is unlike many travel adventures that you might have read. The author states quite plainly that the stories are a mixture of fiction and non-fiction which makes the twists and turns more exciting as there is always a bit of mystery...did this really happen or not?

Geoff Dyer

For instance, in the titular piece, he and his wife (name changed from the real Rebecca to the made-up Jessica) are driving near White Sands National Park in New Mexico and stop to pick up a hitchhiker. All is well, until within minutes the car passes a sign:

WARNING

Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers

Detention Facilities in Area

What happens from there includes much neurotic thinking (I laughed because I could follow every little byway of his fevered brain) and is as spooky as a Twilight Zone episode.  

Mr. Dyer read this chapter as part of his presentation but never did let us know how much of the event was real. Maybe all of it or maybe part was just a figment of his imagination.

It doesn't matter. The writing is excellent and entertaining and funny in a snarky sort of way. I couldn't wait to get home and read more.

So far I have traveled with Mr. Dyer to The Forbidden City in Beijing where he has a mild flirtation with a non-guide tour guide; to Tahiti in search of a Gauguin experience; and, to The Lightning Field, an art installation in the American desert. 

I had him autograph my hardcover copy of his book. He didn't seem to be in any hurry and we had a brief intense chat. He is British (and charming of course). I asked him what writers had influenced him or that he continued to read and he answered: John Berger, Annie Dillard, and Rebecca West.

He especially recommended Ms. West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, her 1200-page classic about Yugoslavia and the Balkans. He promised that if I read the first thousand pages and wanted to give it up to let him know and he would refund my money. (I told you he was charming.) Ms. West was one of the Dead Ladies in Jessa Crispin's book that I wrote about here.

As to Annie Dillard, Mr. Dyer wrote the preface to her collection of essays In Abundance (here) and also includes a quote from her in the front of his book:

The point of going somewhere...is not to see the most spectacular anything. It is simply to see what is there. We are here on the planet only once, and might as well get a feel for the place.

Mr. Dyer has taken her words to heart.

Women and the Italian Experience

I am on a roll with reading about travel in Italy. Next up: Italy, A Love Story (2005) edited by Camille Cusumano.

In the book's twenty-eight essays "women describe the country they love and why they have fallen under its spell."

So we have titles such as Aromatherapy, Italian-Style; Italy of the Poets; Rome, the Art of Living; and, Sexing the Eggplant.

This book is part of a travel series published by Seal Press. Ms. Cusumano has edited other books of women's writings on France, Mexico, and Greece. 

Italy, A Love Story was given to me by a friend who knows my penchant both for essays and travel. Now where did I set down that espresso?

The Writer's Block Festival

Writer's Block: An inability to write.

It's a term I am sure we are all familiar with. But today, I took writer's block to a new level by attending The Writer's Block Festival. This was the second annual celebration of local, state, and regional writing. 

People could attend workshops on plot, poetry, place or playwriting. Or perhaps one had an interest in sitting in on panels discussing  publishing, blogging, or young adult fiction. Readings were held. Books were for sale. There was a print fair. A national poetry slam winner Anis Mojgani was to be the keynote speaker/reader/slammer at an event this evening.

I signed up for a 90-minute workshop on travel writing led by university assistant professor Robin Lee Mozer. There were six participants. 

To begin, we each wrote for 20 minutes about a trip we had taken recently: a trip to the airport, a river boat trip, an island off Hilton Head, and a stroll through an art fair. I wrote about my trip this week to the chapel at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky (here). One fellow had recently hiked the Appalachian Trail which led to a discussion of Bill Bryson (see my fan letter to Mr. B. here) who has written about his adventures conquering that trail.

Ms. Mozer explored how to create yourself as a character in a travel essay, spin a good yarn, and address awkward situations or uncomfortable accommodations. 

This is from her handout:

Good travel writing does more than simply tell readers about a place. Good travel writing invites readers to sit with you in that booth at that barbecue joint in Alabama or to pedal wildly along next to you on that unexpectedly grueling bike tour of Argentina's wine country. Part of transporting readers is giving them a character to travel with. In a travel essay, that character is you.

It occurs to me that those of us who write about books are writing 'travel essays' as well. To follow Ms. Mozer's guide: The book is the place we have visited, we tell the book's story (or part of it anyway), and some books are so uncomfortable to read that we flee from them as if their pages held bedbugs.